


Whither Then?

by blanketed_in_stars



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bilbo & Frodo Baggins In Erebor, F/M, Fellowship of the Ring, Fíli & Kíli & Thorin Live, Gen, I'm Sorry Tolkien, M/M, Sailing To Valinor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 05:26:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4654011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanketed_in_stars/pseuds/blanketed_in_stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many things change, but at the heart: food and cheer and song, and holding on to what really matters.</p><p>A brief retelling of the Lord of the Rings if no one had died at the end of the Hobbit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whither Then?

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a quick little “Bilbo dies” exchange with [Palebluedot](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Palebluedot) but then we decided to love ourselves and turn it into “everyone lives.” I got carried away.
> 
> This is just my bit, so you can read the full version with all our back-and-forth [here.](http://forgive-me-remus.tumblr.com/post/127563242979/everyone-liveshobbitlotr-au)

Thorin is a little banged up after the battle, of course. He is not supposed to be on his feet while he’s healing, but naturally he doesn’t give a goblin’s toe about that. He is Thorin son of Thrain and he’ll be damned if he’s going to lie around in bed while other people get to enjoy his mountain.

So Bilbo follows him around, like a puppy, he thinks.

“Thorin, slow down.”

“Thorin, go lay down.”

“Thorin, you will get an infection, get out of those cobwebs.”

“No, Bilbo, you don’t understand. This armor belonged to my great-great-great—“

“Get out.”

And he does, of course. And slowly they heal together.

Thorin lives for those nights, shortly after the battle, when the pain isn’t so bad and he can sit up late talking with Bilbo about the adventures they’ve had. Bilbo is always interested about life in the mountain, what it was like before—and Thorin doesn’t mind talking about it because it will be that way again.

And Thorin sings Bilbo dwarven songs.

They have a very nice life in the mountain with almost everything they could want, but one day Bilbo says, “D’you know what would be nice? Southfarthing leaf.”

Thorin is a little dismissive because he’s certain the farmers in Dale have come up with better stuff than Southfarthing, but he’s never tried it. And Bilbo tells him it’s _amazing, the best tobacco in Middle-Earth, honestly._

But they don’t get imports from the Shire, so it’s time for another adventure. They stop by Beorn’s along the way.

And of course the Sackville-Bagginses are living in Bag End when they reach Hobbiton, still using the original spoons. Thorin pays them quite a lot (by Hobbit standards) and they get their own hole and piss off forever.

Bilbo is quite flattered. He gives Thorin a tour of his hobbit-hole because, as he tells him, there were far too many wild dwarves around the last time you were here. They smile, remembering. And then Bilbo says, “Now there’s just one.”

They kiss in front of the coat-rack in the hall, and Bilbo hangs Thorin’s blue hood on the first peg.

And of course all the young hobbits are a bit weirded out by this legendary Mr. Baggins and his strange dwarf companion.

Particularly Frodo Baggins, whose parents have recently died and who spends his days wandering alone in the apple orchards or, when he’s particularly unhappy, on the shore of the lake. And Frodo lives with his maternal family, the Brandybucks, but although he’s friends with two of his cousins he doesn’t really belong. It doesn’t take much convincing to bring him back to Erebor.

Frodo is wide-eyed all the way back, having never seen much of the world, but he loves it. He loves the streams and the grassy plains and the shine of the stars when they first appear in the evening. Bilbo loves him immediately, this small cousin of his, and sees himself in him.

Thorin, who was entirely agreeable about the whole thing, takes a little longer to really adjust—but he watches Bilbo and Frodo together and listens to Bilbo teach Frodo his original poetry—embarrassing, Thorin says sometimes, certainly not fit for dwarfish company—and when Frodo comes up with his own poems Thorin thinks he’s never heard such amazing rhymes in all his life.

No, it’s not dwarfish, but _that particular_ poem, Frodo says he’s never recited to anyone else before, and Thorin smiles.

Bilbo sees them walking together along the ramparts of Erebor and thinks that he’ll never need to go back to Bag End again.

(He does, of course, but since Thorin and Frodo come with him, he never really leaves home at either end of the journey.)

When Frodo invites Merry and Pippin to visit Erebor… Those poor dwarves never knew what hit them.

Balin teaches some rather interesting, lesser-known formulas for fireworks to Pippin.

Merry learns about the dwarf forges and is an awful smith, but Glóin is just happy to see someone who appreciates a nicely curved blade. Fili and Kili, bless them, show Merry and Pippin a few secret passageways and get chewed out by Thorin. Bombur is just very glad to have someone who understands.

Merry and Pippin kiss at the top of the mountain, where they’re not actually supposed to go, but Dwalin mentioned something about a staircase and are they just supposed to not go looking for it?

By far the best place for kissing, though, they find, is in the small garden on the southern slope of the mountain beneath the huge oak tree, piling acorns in each other’s lap.

**\---**

In their old age Bilbo and Thorin go to the elves, where they’ve kept in contact with Elrond, who’s good fun when you get him drunk. They enjoy a quiet vacation of sorts. And in the meantime, Gandalf convinces Bilbo that he really must do something about that Ring of his, and they hold a council in Rivendell.

Frodo comes along because he hasn’t seen his fathers in some time.

Glóin sends his son Gimli to get some experience in the world.

Thranduil is still a bit of a shut-in but his son Legolas insists on going, so he arrives looking dashing as always.

And a young hobbit named Samwise Gamgee hears of the council and decides that now is as good a time as ever to see the elves, especially if Merry and Pippin are going.

Nobody talks to the man with unwashed hair in the corner except for Boromir of Gondor, who won’t leave him alone, and his brother Faramir, who didn’t really want to come and can’t understand what Boromir finds so fun about those two hobbit mischief-makers.

Frodo hears them talk of the Ring, and he knows what it’s done to his fathers—to both of them, because not only is it cursed, it’s made of _gold._

And he says, “I will take the ring to Mordor,” and he does know the way.

And later Bilbo and Thorin are both a little weepy over him, but he promises he’ll come back, he _will,_ look at all the adventures you two have had and you always managed to find each other again—well, we’re family, and I’ll be back. Besides, Sam will be with me.

This doesn’t really comfort Thorin or Bilbo because they only met Sam a few days ago, but Frodo trusts him entirely, and they trust Frodo (and, they reason, Merry and Pippin are going as well, and they’re trouble but at least they’re reliable trouble).

Just before the fellowship departs (ten members, because even though Faramir is still reluctant, he’s not going back to Minas Tirith alone). Thorin pulls Legolas aside and reminds him that he may be old, but he can still stuff Legolas inside a barrel if anything happens to his son.

After they leave, Bilbo and Thorin look around Rivendell. It’s so empty after the commotion of the past few days, and they settle in to wait. There’s a kind of peace in the running river and gently falling leaves, and they can almost forget about the horrors happening outside the valley—they have each other.

In this world, the journey is longer, because they have to stop at Erebor—quite a bit out of their way, but worth it for the mithril. They set out better-protected and with dwarven ponies. Sam names his Bill.

Things go south once they leave Mirkwood, just past Lothlorien—they’re separated by the Uruk-hai.

Boromir fights a dozen Uruks at once and never falls—but he loses sight of Merry and Pippin, who run off to help Frodo and Sam.

Legolas, with his elf eyes, sees an ambush and pulls Gimli and Faramir in line behind him.

Boromir and Aragorn (Gandalf has fallen in Moria) are left alone where the Limlight meets up with the Anduin, wondering where their company has gone.

So Faramir and Legolas and Gimli, being chased by the Uruk-hai along the Limlight, have no choice but to plunge into Fangorn.

Faramir grew up alone with the white tree of kings while Denethor doted on Boromir. Sometimes he thought he was going mad, but he could swear it spoke to him, told him of talking trees.

Legolas mentions old magic, he says the elves began it—but Faramir knows that’s different; the tree of kings whispered secrets older than the Ents.

It whispered of ent _wives_.

Gimli takes his father’s axe and, at Faramir’s instructions, hews the stone at the base of the oldest tree in the forest in two. It splits, and the air shudders.

And the vines, and moss, and ferns come alive again—for the first time in three millennia, the forest sings.

They pull Isengard up by its very roots.

Pippin and Merry and Sam and Frodo are not the best when it comes to directions; they end up just past the tip of Mirkwood, in the middle of the brown lands.

In the night, something watches them—eyes that glow like lamps, a hissing voice from the darkness. Gollum is no match for the four of them, with their elvish rope and quick hands.

In the barren waste of the brown lands, they are all hungry, but Gollum—no, Smeagol, sometimes—says he knows a way out.

Merry and Pippin want to leave him, but Frodo pities him, and Sam—Sam looks at Smeagol, following only one master with undying loyalty, and sees his own twisted reflection. When they catch a rare rabbit, he gives Smeagol part of his own ration.

He wonders why, afterwards—but he remembers being afraid, and not knowing which path is the right one, and how easy it would be to turn the wrong way. In Lothlorien, in Mirkwood, when cornered by Thorin in Erebor. He might never have left the Shire. He reminds himself that sometimes the right path is the one that you never thought you would take.

Smeagol’s directions lead them, not south, but further east, to the sea of Rhûn. It’s not where they’d hoped to go, but at least there’s water.

They find tracks in the shore of the sea, big heavy boots and sometimes claws. They hear wild calls over the water. They are not alone.

Pippin is the smallest and he creeps forward, forward, around and under and through the brush, alone, until he sees them. The dark forces of Sauron have gathered. They hunt the majestic kine that live on the edges of the sea, they taint the water with their filth, and they befoul the very air.

The Ring calls to them. all but carrying Frodo, the hobbits and smeagol hurry along the warpath, going south at last.

Boromir and Aragorn continue straight along the road to Minas Tirith. It’s a long journey and Aragorn, ever taciturn, finds Boromir to be more than slightly frustrating, with his suggestions and talk of stewards. Boromir thinks that this ranger’s mood would improve drastically if he could only look out from the summit of Minas Tirith and see the great plains stretched before him—but, as the dark clouds on the horizon remind him, those plains will vanish soon if they don’t hurry.

It’s on the Falls of Rauros that they finally understand each other: Aragorn hums the Lay of Leithian (his favorite hobby besides Not Being King) and Boromir, exhausted and less guarded, sings the words without thinking.

They talk. and Boromir sees in Strider something older, something bigger. Aragorn, for his part, is afraid of so many things, but Boromir of Gondor has a surprisingly simple worldview, and somehow the fears recede a little. Perhaps, Aragorn thinks, all is not lost.

When they reach Minas Tirith, the orcs are already there, and the city is falling. The king and the steward’s son charge ahead but they are only two against hundreds, against thousands. They are forced into a corner, back to back, enemies on all sides.

And then someone shouts that the captain of the white tower has come, and the news spreads quickly through the dying city—the captain, the son of Denethor, is here.

Boromir and Aragorn are understandably puzzled

And then Faramir hacks and hews his way through the melee to where Boromir has just beheaded an orc.

“How are you today, little brother?” Boromir asks, noting the horsehair in Faramir’s tunic.

Faramir grins. “Today? Today, life is good,” he replies, and the host of king Théoden joins the fray behind him.

(Faramir, Legolas, and Gimli took their leave of the Ents and Entwives after destroying Isengard, and marched to Edoras.)

(There, the shield-maiden Eowyn could not save her uncle, but she rose and mustered his Rohirrim, led them along the mountains, through the Eastfold, when she saw that the beacons were lit.)

On the plains, Eowyn stands tall and kills the witch-king with her uncle's blade. For centuries they will hang that sword above the throne in the golden hall of Meduseld, and the shield-maidens are known as Herugrim.

They drive the forces of Mordor back, but with heavy losses. There is, however, a king in Gondor—uncrowned, but no less fit to rule. Aragorn rallies the people and they begin to pick themselves out of the rubble. Boromir stands at his side, vouches for him, explains to his citizens that this man, here, is one whom they can all call king.

Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, and Smeagol struggle along the far eastern path towards Mordor. Ered Lithui, the ash mountains, have to end somewhere. The hobbits find the back entrance to the land of shadow and take it, groping in the deepest darkness towards a hot red light.

Smeagol is no help here—but he is still Smeagol, he eats lembas because he must, and Samwise Gamgee gives him water to wash it down.

Merry and Pippin struggle to find light here, both for their eyes and their hearts. They nearly lose hope in the endlessness of it all, they can’t remember the sound of the Brandywine or the sight of fireworks, but through it all they hold tight to each other’s hand and whisper, always— _I will look after you._

And they do, but not in the way they expect.

There are scouts, even at the edge of Mordor, and evil creatures that don’t need Sauron to fuel their malice. Merry and Pippin learn to be quicker than before, and to speak without words—not the jokes of their childhood, but warnings and pleas and all the signs that the world is not right.

They kill, and kill again, orcs and spiders and things without names. They do not keep count. It is no sport, it is survival, it is life itself, it is becoming something they didn’t want to be.

By the time they finally see Mount Doom, Merry and Pippin still wear mithril, but it no longer shines, and they do not smile, but watch behind and ahead and on all sides.

Smeagol remains Smeagol to the end. He sees an orc that Sam does not, and throws himself on the beast, and Sam thinks about paths again. If this is the right one, it is too dark for his liking.

Frodo says he will climb Mount Doom alone, but he can’t—so the other three climb with him, digging their feet into the dust and straining upwards to reach the fire.

And then Frodo hesitates.

He can’t bear it—the source of all their suffering, such a small thing in his palm—it stretched his fathers out over the years—it clawed its way deep inside him to rest under his ribs—and he can’t bear it, and he hesitates—

And Sam rips the Ring from his master’s grip and hurls it into the fire.

**\---**

The eagles do not come. They do not need to.

There are four hobbits now, four friends, a family of sorts, grown up racing over fields and hills and whole mountains. They pull each other along before the earth even shakes, and reach safety while Boromir is still weeping for them.

In the crumbled city of Minas Tirith, Sam does not leave Frodo’s side but for once, when he goes to the stables, to the stall Aragorn told him of, and feeds an apple to Bill.

Merry and Pippin hobble together to the summit and stand beneath the white tree. The fields are burnt, the sky is blackened, but birds nest above their heads. They wash their mithril by hand in the spring at the edge of the city.

Smiles do not return as easily as the shine of mail, but slowly, they do come back—at a barrel of Southfarthing, at the dirt and grass, at a sunrise in the east dawning clear.

They kiss at the top of this mountain, too, a mountain of white stone and all that they’ve lived with each other, cobbled together to make a solid place to stand.

Frodo wakes in bloodstained sheets without the healing of elves, in a room with a door torn away by orc invaders, to Sam telling him that everything is all right now.

Aragorn is crowned king of the new age, in a courtyard still strewn with rubble, and at the feast that night, Legolas and Gimli drink and drink until at last Faramir is forced to step in and settle it once and for all, earning himself the respect of most residents of Middle-Earth. The warrior queen Eowyn raises her own glass to him and says, with all the certainty of the tide, that he is welcome in Meduseld. Boromir will visit them often there, but his place is in Minas Tirith with his brother, his captain, his king.

**\---**

After so much darkness, Rivendell is almost blinding to Frodo, with its marble and sunshine and smiling faces, but he remembers the paths here, and follows his feet to a humble room where he hears low voices behind the door.

He knocks.

There is something to be said for silence, how it can fill you up and make you whole. Hands on Frodo’s face, arms around his shoulders—smiles bigger than everything he’s seen, and he has seen the wide, wide world. That doorway becomes well-watered with tears and the at last dale echoes with laughter. even in Rivendell, where years can pass in an afternoon, the heart can worry, but now it is healed.

The road lies before them, leading out of the valley. The Shire is waiting for them.

Bag End is as it was, without even any dust—for, as the tall old man in the hat explains, under the hill and across the water very little ever changes. And, he adds, perhaps a wizard is allowed, once in his life, to be very, very late.

Down the hill, the brandywine runs, and Merry and Pippin soak their feet in the cool current. The party tree casts dappled shadows on their faces, but the darkness there is fading, all the lines smoothing over, like their footprints on the bank.

The world is broad, and adventures cover a great deal of it—enough, Bilbo thinks, that he is quite content to sit in his hobbit-hole, or Rivendell, or Erebor, and be grateful for a pocket-handkerchief. Thorin feels much the same, as long as Frodo is there with them.

But then the journey to Erebor is long, and what, really, is gold when compared to peace? Thorin sends word of their plans and the dwarves come—all twelve of them, many old but as hardy as ever.

They have one last supper in Bag End with music and ale, and they take care to empty the pantries completely. Not a single plate is cracked, though they still sing about it.

**\---**

At the gray havens, they all assemble—the king, the elf, the dwarf, the steward’s sons, the hobbits, and the Company, on the shores of the sea.

There are tears, but they are not evil.

Sam has seen the elves, and he knows what waits beyond the horizon, and he is glad that Frodo will go there.

Merry and Pippin clasp hands and do not need to promise to look after each other—that has been said and said again, and now they only promise to hold on until they, too, see that far green country.

At the prow of the ship, Bilbo turns to Thorin and recites, softly, a poem of endings and adventures and Thorin hears it and faces into the wind. _“I see the star above my mast,”_ he finishes, the last line, and dawn hits the silver glass of the water to turn it red as dragonfire.

-fin

**Author's Note:**

> Thorin’s line here is from “Bilbo’s Last Song” which can be found [here.](http://tolkien.cro.net/talesong/lastsong.html)
> 
> Herugrim is Théoden’s sword.


End file.
